Mixed Attitudes bring the beauty

RITZVILLE – A Revised 2020 Dance Performance held on the main stage at Wheatland Communities Fairgrounds Saturday, Oct. 3, featured dancers from beginning to advanced.

Instructor Karen Kinch has been teaching dance in the area for many years, after dancing professionally in musical theater and rehearsing with the Spokane Ballet Company when they first began.

"It's just been a joy to be able to pass on my love of dancing," Kinch said.

She said Saturday's recital was a modified version of a concert originally planned for March 24 and canceled due to COVID-19 restrictions.

"We missed it by literally six days. They shut it down, and I had everything all set," Kinch said. "It was disappointing, to say the least."

Despite the abundance of beauty and grace in Saturday's 11 dance routines, Kinch said she was missing between 25-30 dancers.

"Parents said, 'We can't handle teaching our kids at home, homeschooling them, trying to work from home and getting them to dance,'" Kinch said. "I know it's been hard on everyone. I can't imagine having to work fulltime and home school. But I was missing almost half my dancers, so that made it a little difficult for those kids that were left onstage."

Kinch said a group of 12 dancers in the 3rd-4th grade class was reduced to just four.

"For them to still get up there and be able to do everything, I was terribly proud of them," Kinch said.

Kinch laughed when she spoke of her husband pointing out one benefit to the shortened recital.

"My husband said, 'Well, I don't mean this unkindly, but you know, a bunch of farmers, they're probably going to be glad you cut a few of those dances because now it's only going to last 35 or 40 minutes.'" Kinch said. "But, the fathers, even though they are a bunch of farmers, so to speak, have been so supportive."

Kinch said she started teaching when she and her husband "came back to the farm" in 1977, with just five kids in her first class. She said last year, she had to order 65 medals for her dancers.

"It's been really wonderful," Kinch said. "I've had kids from Kahlotus, Connell, Sprague, Washtucna, and Lacrosse. I've been blessed to be able to pull from a very big area."

Washtucna's Lora Hille, who teaches the very beginners - dancers from kindergarten to second grade - has been teaching with her the past 10 years.

Kinch said a lot of her dancers have pursued the art past high school, joining their college dance teams.

"I never had any go on to pursue classical ballet, but I had lots go on to theater," Kinch said. "I had one dancer who went to round five and just barely missed becoming a Sea Hawk gal."

Kinch said she usually picks the dance music.

"With the two older groups, we discuss different pieces of music; maybe something they've heard," Kinch said, "but I typically am the one who picks it. It's pretty important to me to make sure - especially with some of the jazzier music - I just don't want a whole bunch of bad language. That's kind of been my challenge here lately, an awful lot of that stuff is not very good."

It was one of her dancers, though, who picked the group's name.

"Twenty years ago my advanced dancers and I were brainstorming for names," Kinch recalled. "One of the girls said, 'Well we have ballet attitudes and we have jazz attitudes. How about we call it Mixed Attitudes?' And that's what we've been ever since."